While most people in the media today seem to have a binary view of what’s going on right now — either they’re all bad, or they’re all good. Lil Wayne is offering a more nuanced perspective on police.
The 37-year-old rapper opened up on the latest episode of Apple Music’s “Young Money Radio” about several experiences he’s had with law enforcement, including one encounter that saved his life.
“My life was saved when I was young,” Lil Wayne said, recounting a story he’s shared before. “I was 12 or something, I think. Shot myself. I was saved by a white cop, Uncle Bob. So you have to understand … you have to understand the way I view police, period. I was saved by a white cop.”
“There was a bunch of black cops jumped over me when they saw me at that door, laying on the floor with that hole in my chest; he refused to,” he continued. “Those black cops jumped over me, and ran through the crib, and said, ‘We found the gun, we found this, we found that.’ [Uncle Bob] said, ‘I found this baby on this floor. I need to get to a hospital.’ He didn’t wait for an ambulance. He took his car. He made somebody drive it, and he made sure that I lived.”
In 2018, during the BET Awards, Lil Wayne talked about his experience with “Uncle Bob” — Deputy Robert Hoobler, who was fired in 2012 — whom he said “refused to leave” the hospital until he knew the future recording artist “made it.”
The rapper also talked about his negative experiences.
He recalled growing up in New Orleans, when the police would do “a thing called Jump Out Boys.” According to Lil Wayne, it was like “a clown car” filled with police, who would drive into his neighborhood and just “jump out.”
Lil Wayne also shared a more recent encounter, explaining he was flying on his personal airplane when the pilot, whom he hired and happened to be white, told the entertainer to sit down when he tried to “go up there to talk to him.”
“He must have thought he was flying United Airlines or something, he must have forgot that that was my plane,” Lil Wayne said. “He must have forgot. I think what happened is he did forget, he forgot what was going on.”
The pilot, Lil Wayne added, apparently called the police, because officers were waiting on the rapper once the plane landed. It should be noted law enforcement officers have reportedly found illegal drugs on Lil Wayne’s private jet in the past.
“Before you want to speculate about anything, understand that I go through situations, too, and we all got our situations, so don’t judge no one for no reason, for how or whatever, don’t judge,” Lil Wayne said. “Do you. Do you. Help out in any kind of way you want to help out, any kind of way you can.”
Lil Wayne’s comments about police come as protests and riots have broken out in all 50 states following the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, a white man.
Chauvin has since been charged with second-degree murder and manslaughter. A majority of the city council members have also vowed to eliminate the police department.